March 4, 2017

a post without a local weather report

A couple of years ago my son-in-law gifted me an Amazon Echo. It wasn't my birthday or Christmas. He knows I like gadgets and is a great guy. At the time the device was a nice music speaker with a few skills. It could tell me the weather forecast or the score of a ball game. I programmed it to give me selected news headlines. It would answer basic questions or serve as an alarm. Today the app can do a ton of stuff, but is still rather basic compared to what digital devices will be in the near future. But I dig my Echo. I can even compete on Jeopardy questions.

For Christmas my wife gave me an Echo Dot to use in my office. I can listen to internet radio or streaming music without using my phone. The sound is pretty basic, this device is the size of a hockey puck. But when listening to talk radio or sports talk the quality of sound is not as important. Sometimes I like to listen to music in my office. In that case I can connect the Dot to my Bose Soundlink II Bluetooth speaker. It is pretty cool. I find it handy to control my music with voice commands. For instance if a song comes on Pandora that I don't like I can just say "Alexa skip" instead of fumbling for my phone, unlocking the screen, launching the Pandora App and pushing the fast forward button. In fact, I can launch the app on the Echo just by telling it to play Pandora.

Ed the Echo is easy to use and sounds pretty good. You can listen to one at Best Buy or Bed Bath & Beyond to test one out. If you buy a lot of stuff from Amazon (I don't) you can even purchase through the device: Alexa, order more paper towels", and your credit card is charged and the product arrives. All through voice, very Jetsons style. You can order pizzas, it is cool technology, but still in its infancy.